Category Archives: Grade 8 English

My name is Mr Hutton, and I will be your English teacher this year. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu! By way of introduction, I attach a holiday photo of my family (this is at Downtown Disney in LA).

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Welcome (back) to YIS for the 2018-2019 academic year! I hope you all had a restful and refreshing summer break. I am looking forward to seeing all the returning students as well as meeting the new – I hope you too will enjoy YIS!

I will be sharing individual formative feedback reflection records with you shortly, which you will use to review feedback and reflect on your own work. Primarily, I will be using both my blog and Google Classroom to share work and communicate with you. Assignments will also be submitted via Google Classroom, so you definitely need to sign up to your allocated class!

In the meantime, you might like to bookmark this blog. Also, don’t forget to add the subject share folder to your Google Drive – it is how I share everything with the class so it is really important! (If you don’t know how to do this I will go through it in class…)

To access individual unit pages, choose your class —> Grade X —–> Unit XXXX to find the correct unit page. Units are split into individual lessons, which you can click on the links for. Extra resources are also included on these pages.

There is so much fun and learning on the way this year and I am really looking forward to it. Can’t wait to meet you all next week! Let’s have an exciting year!

My name is Mr Hutton, and I will be your English teacher this year. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu! By way of introduction, I attach a photo of myself and Kenta (my son). He likes eating muffins, yoghurt, and playing with toy cars! (I also like such things…)

Welcome (back) to YIS for the 2017-2018 academic year! I hope you all had a restful and refreshing summer break. I am looking forward to seeing all the returning students as well as meeting the new – I hope you too will enjoy YIS!

I will be sharing individual student folders with you shortly, which you will use to organise your files and submit work. In the meantime, you might like to bookmark this blog. Also, don’t forget to add the subject share folder to your Google Drive – it is how I share everything with the class so it is really important! (If you don’t know how to do this I will go through it in class…)

This is a good starting point, but as we work through the year you will need to check out the relevant page for the unit you will be studying. Will will also be using Google Classroom this year, but I will introduce this during class time.

To access individual unit pages, choose your class —> Grade X —–> Unit XXXX to find the correct unit page. Units are split into individual lessons, which you can click on the links for. Extra resources are also included on these pages.

There is so much fun and learning on the way this year and I am really looking forward to it. Can’t wait to meet you all next week! Let’s have an exciting year!

Welcome back to YIS for the 2016-2017 academic year! I hope you all had a restful and refreshing summer break. I am looking forward to seeing all my old students as well as meeting new students – I hope you will all enjoy YIS!

I will be sharing individual student folders with you shortly, which you will use to organise your files and submit work. In the meantime, you might like to bookmark this blog. Also, don’t forget to add the subject share folder to your Google Drive – it is how I share everything with the class so it is really important!

In recent classes, we have been broadening our focus on prejudice and stereotypes from the novel (The Outsiders) to the real world. Our aims are to:

develop an open-mind that is capable of considering opposing viewpoints

learn how to express these ideas in a real world setting (opinion pieces / letters to the editor).

Here is our brainstorm of possible topics to investigate. Students will search for news articles about one of these topics. We will then practise the ‘Step Inside’ routine in order to consider multiple perspectives on the story.

We are also learning about the genre features of the ‘letter to the editor’ text type. Our initial brainstorm about features of this text type is summarised below. We then compared what we thought we already knew with some example letters.

Students will develop two letters in response to a news story, writing sensitively from two different perspectives.

Year 8 has just kicked off our third unit, which focuses on stereotypes, prejudice, and point of view. We started by brainstorming some ideas that came to mind when we thought about the ‘stereotypical gang’ member. We followed this up by listening to a podcast about Gangs at Harper High in Chicago in order to expand our understanding about what gangs are like. Original lesson and resources are here. Students showed the development of their thinking using the ‘I used to think… Now I think…’ strategy. Some of these ideas are recorded in the comments below.

Good morning everyone and happy snow day! I hope you have a productive day learning at home under a warm blanket or kotatsu! Please see the following descriptions for assigned e-Learning.

8A Extended Homeroom (P1)

Looking at the guidelines and examples, write a reflection that summarises your development as a learner in all of semester 1. The reflection should be written in a Google doc (that is editable by me), be no more than 950 characters (please do a word count), and linked to this document.

8B English (P2)

We were planning to start preparing for a new assessment today, which will be difficult from home. Instead, spend some time reading your DEAR book independently. We will look at the next assessment tomorrow. (Optional: you could also review your notes to revise everything we have learned about poetry in this unit.)

9D English (P3 and P4)

I have checked your Anya’s Ghost analytical essays and given you feedback via Google Docs (reflection and feedback document) and Veracross. Please access my feedback, read and consider it, then start drafting your final copy. It is due by 9am this Friday.

8A Tutor (P8)

Today we set time aside for your showcase portfolios. Only one week and a half until SLCs so get moving! Also, please check the sign up sheet with your parents to confirm whether the time is okay. If not, please email me!

A hearty welcome to all my students from grade 7 to 11! We have been working hard to redevelop our units of inquiry and we think we have some exciting things in store for you.

Because of this redevelopment, you may find some empty pages on my blog. Uh oh! Please excuse this as I will be rebuilding my unit pages as we go.

In the meantime, you can check out the year overview page for your grade, which should have all the information you need. If not, shoot me an email at huttona@yis.ac.jp and I will help you out! I have put the hyperlinks below, however you can also access the pages by going to my blog –> ‘Choose Your Class’ –> “Grade XX English’ –> selecting relevant page. I have also put the links to our class share folders, so please add the relevant one to your drive for easy access to resources. This folder is pretty important as this is how I will share most resources and assignments with you.

Today in class we discussed the difference between a concept and a topic. After some discussion, we came up with the following ideas…

So basically, concepts are big ideas that are timeless, universal, and can relate to many of our subjects at school, whereas topics are more about specific times, people, things and places.

We then had an in-depth discussion about the following image – is ‘Dinosaurs‘ a concept or a topic? Have a look at the drawing and decide…

We decided that as dinosaurs are not timeless, nor universal, they are a topic. We also brainstormed possible concepts that could be studied in relation to dinosaurs, and we came up with ideas such as evolution and change. Cool huh?

Finally, have a look at some of the words below. Concepts are listed on the left, whereas topics are listed on the right. Keep an eye out for more big ideas and ask your teachers what key concepts you will be learning about this year!